Category : Technology

I have been having issues installing Gizmo 5 on Windows 7 and its server companion Windows 2008 R2. The installer needs updating for the latest versions of Windows:

I did submit a support ticket at http://support.gizmo5.com/ but this got nowhere. However it is still possible to install Gizmo 5 by running the installer in Compatibility Mode.

Download and save the installer (saving to your Desktop will do just fine).

Right-click on the installer (it is named WinGizmoInstall.exe by default) and click on Properties.

Select the Compatibility tab on the Properties dialog.

Check the Run this program in compatibility mode for and select Windows Vista (Service Pack 2) on the drop-down below.

Click on OK and run the installer.

The Gizmo team will update their installer but in the meantime this is a good workaround. Note that if you upgraded your machine to Windows 7 and Gizmo 5 was already installed then you do not need to do anything.

I recently fixed an issue that had been plaguing one of my development machines. The issue appeared after installing a service pack for Windows 2008. The range of symptoms was quite wide so it took me a while to realized that they were all linked to the same configuration problem.

“Localhost not available” when browsing to local applications hosted on IIS

Visual Studio development web server (cassini) could not be accessed. This was forcing me to use IIS for web development.

All these issues were caused by the same configuration error in the hosts / lmhosts file. This file is located in C:\Windows\System32\drivers\etc. The file contained no IP v.4 entry for localhost at 127.0.0.1 but had an IP v.6 entry for localhost. The solution is simple, either add an entry for IP v.4 or comment the entry for IP v.6. Either way, your file should like this